


Merry Christmas, Peter.

by MaroonDragon



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Season 6 Spoilers, christmas drabble, not much though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:10:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaroonDragon/pseuds/MaroonDragon
Summary: Stiles starts visiting Peter once everything with the Wild Hunt is over.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write a little Steter drabble after seeing the last episode. 
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone!

Stiles is not without guilt. He had done a lot of things that he wasn’t proud of. A lot of those things he had been capable of justifying. Everyone had missed the signs. It had been self-defence. He couldn’t have known with the little information they had had at the time. It allowed him to sleep at night. Recently the guilt had been gnawing at his insides though.

‘They will come for me, but who would ever come for you?’

There was nothing to justify those words. Certainly, he had been angry and the wolf had been pushing all his buttons in all the wrong ways, but it’s not an excuse. Stiles knows what it is like to be forgotten. To sit at the curb of school, waiting for his father to pick him up hours after school was done with for the day. No one showing up for his birthday party because his mother forgot to hand out the invitations. He had watched his mom forget about him, and see his dad prioritize the bottle and work over taking care of his son. Stiles had picked himself up, grew up years before he should have, and eventually his father had remembered he was there.   
  
Peter had been forgotten before though. Perhaps not as thoroughly as he had been wiped away by the Wild Hunt, but he’d been left behind in a hospital. He’d been nothing but perhaps a passing thought for Laura and Derek, while left to rot. After that he’d been shoved into Eichen House, to be forgotten by everyone. Yet, he’d been willing to fry himself just to get to Malia. In doing so, he had set everything into motion to actually save Beacon Hills, and for Stiles to be remembered again.   


Despite those actions, Peter hadn’t been completely forgiven for all that came before the Wild Hunt, but he had been declared to have suffered enough. He was no longer pack, and Malia still didn’t want any contact, but he was allowed to remain in Beacon Hills. With the threat of another visit to Eichen House should he feel the need to become dangerous again. If Peter hadn’t been so weak, Stiles had fully expected him to leave. The man had been burned to a crisp however, and without a pack or an alpha, he was mending just as slowly as he had been before. Only this time he was awake, and everyone knew it. It didn’t sit well with Stiles, to let the man waste away again. It wasn’t just guilt for throwing those words in Peter’s face, but the fact that he knew them to be true. Peter had no one, and no one would ever bother to remember him. 

* * *

  
“Hey, Peter. I brought some decorations. I figured this place could use a make-over.” The werewolf’s vocal cords were still pretty fried, but those blue eyes made it clear that he was not particularly thrilled at Stiles’ appearance in his home.   


Considering he was healing incredibly slowly for a wolf, they had placed him in one of the nursing homes in Beacon Hills. A private room, and quite a bit more luxury than he had before, but still a rather drab place. It reminded Stiles of the place his grandfather had been in. Either way, he felt the Christmas decorations might help make the place feel a bit more comforting.  Even if Peter clearly didn’t appreciate Stiles’ visit.   
  
“I wanted to bring a real tree in here, but they told me it wasn’t allowed. I tried to find the best fake tree I could though, and I brought a couple of real branches to hide away in it. According to Scott those ‘pine tree’ car fresheners smell like chemicals to you wolves.” Stiles chatted away as he set up the tree according to the manual. The only pleasure Peter seemed to derive from the whole happening was Stiles nearly tripping and taking the whole thing down with him.   
  
“I don’t have an eye for decorating like Lydia, but I figured you can’t really go wrong with silver and blue.” He had considered red and gold, but that might be a little too ‘fiery’ for the werewolf. Peter isn’t really much of a conversationalist right not, but Stiles simply keeps talking. If only to avoid the awkward silences whenever he does keep his mouth shut. He talks about what he read in the news, the classes he’s taking online –because he seriously didn’t feel like college after the year he had-, and about what’s happening in Beacon Hills. He broaches the topic of Malia once, but the distant look it gets him makes him quickly shut up about that.

He has to admit that the tree looks pretty neat once he’s actually finished with it. Sure, it will win no prizes, but that doesn’t matter. Once the lights go on, and the room gets darker, the tree makes the place feel a little less like a mausoleum. Peter still looks rather unimpressed, but there is no hostility, and that’s an improvement Stiles supposes. When a nurse comes in to help Peter, Stiles takes it as his cue to leave, touching the bandaged hand for just a moment.

 

* * *

 

Stiles returns the next day, books under his arm and a lot of questions to ask. Peter might be stuck in that bed, but his mind is most definitely awake in there. Considering Stiles can barely sit still for five seconds without getting bored, he can’t imagine Peter being anything but frustrated at his current state. It will still be a few days until the man’s vocal cords would be healed enough for him to talk without pain, but he can blink, and that’s all Stiles needs. It’s an interesting afternoon, once he can make Peter stop blinking ‘no’ to everything because the wolf is an asshole like that.

 

* * *

 

“Stiles, please shut up.” Peter croaks. It’s a little insulting that the werewolf took all the effort to actually tell him to shut up. The man is getting better. There are even some eyelashes growing. The lack of eyebrows is still a bit weird, but considering Peter’s face is still pretty much a huge healing burn, Stiles doesn’t really bother pointing it out.   


“I just don’t see how you have never seen Star Wars. I mean, it was popular even in your ancient times.” It’s Scott all over again. He had assumed Peter would at least get his references.

 

“Star Trek.” Peter manages to spit out, and somehow even with all the burns, he can still smirk.

 

* * *

 

“Dad is working the holidays, so I’m spending Christmas with you. I know they are against smuggling food into the ward, but I’m doing it anyways.” Stiles declares as he bursts into Peter’s room.

It’s been nearly a month since Stiles had decided to pester the wolf, and the man has made quite a recovery. It’s faster than Deaton had predicted, but Stiles doesn’t want to question this change in pace. Peter is still covered in healing burns, and where the skin has fully closed up it looks red and painful. Stiles even brought in some really expensive sheets –on Peter’s dime-, because the other ones were painful to the sensitive and still healing nerve-endings. The others don’t visit, so they have no idea how Peter is stuck with hardly any movement. How he’d been unable to do anything more than blink for months while they worked on stopping the Wild Hunt. Stiles is just glad to know that the werewolf hasn’t gone insane a second time around.

“And exactly what is on the menu then?” Peter drawls, flipping a page on the book he’s reading. Tablets, no matter how annoying sometimes, really were a life-saving tool to keep someone occupied while stuck in a bed. Peter’s movement was still extremely limited, but the bed had been pushed upwards just a little, and he could lift his arm high enough to take the tablet off his bedside table.   
  
“I haven’t really decided yet. You can’t get anything too heavy though.” Peter was still on a diet, and while the werewolf could probably handle it, Stiles didn’t feel like having his visitation curbed because he brought in food that upset their patient’s stomach.

“Stiles, anything is better than the crap they’re feeding me here.” Peter scoffs, and Stiles pretends he didn’t see the winch from where the move pulls on the healing skin. Peter doesn’t want pity, and Stiles has none to give to him.

 

* * *

 

“You need to see the snow.” Stiles point out stubbornly as he moves one of the tables away from Peter’s bed. Those hospital beds are a lot more heavy than they always look when other people are pushing them. There is snow outside though, and Stiles wants to watch the flurries fall down while they enjoy their Christmas dinner.  He nearly slips twice, and he curses the fact that his shoes don’t have any grip on the floor, but finally he manages to push the bed to an angle that Peter can look outside. Getting his own chair to sit next to the wolf is pretty easy after that.

Stiles had decided to go with small portions of food that could be eaten by hand. Peter is a stubborn idiot when it comes to accepting help –pot meet kettle-, and Stiles doesn’t want to see the wolf struggle with his fine motor skills trying to cut up some food. He also pretends not to see the look of relief when the man realises that cutlery wouldn’t be necessary.

“According to the doctors you might be able to go home in a month or two if you keep healing at this pace…” Stiles wants Peter to get better, but he’s going to miss these visits. “I guess you’re going to make good on your promise of leaving town, once you get the all clear.”   
  
“The Wild Hunt is no longer a threat.” Peter is still looking at the snow that’s slowly covering the landscape in a white blanket. “And I can’t really leave my pack behind now, can I?” 

The wolf doesn’t bother to look at him, and if Stiles hadn’t been spending so much time with Peter he would have taken it as simple indifference. Stiles knows better though. It’s a fear of rejection. Feeling a little flushed and too nervous to really speak himself, he simply tangles his fingers with Peter’s freshly healed hand.

“Merry Christmas, Peter.”         

 


End file.
